SJHL Game #44: La Ronge Ice Wolves at Battlefords North Stars

The North Stars host La Ronge tonight at the Civic Center. Puck drops at 7:30.

Recent Game:

La Ronge Ice Wolves:

Lost to the Weyburn Red Wings 5-2 back on Saturday. Had several players out of the lineup, were playing their 3rd game in 3 nights and reportedly put up a pretty good fight before the Red Wings pulled away. They’ve lost 3 of their last 4 and were recently blow out by the Humboldt Broncos as well. Haven’t been on top of their game recently.

Battlefords North Stars:

The North Stars lost to the Humboldt Broncos 1-0 in their most recent game. They’ve lost 2 in a row. Put up a pretty good performance defensively against the Broncos but didn’t do enough offensively. The Stars have only lost 3 in a row once this season and it happened recently. Just before Christmas from Dec 11th to the 21st.

Who’s Hot:

La Ronge Ice Wolves:

Patrick Tran is the hottest Ice Wolf offensively. He has 2 goals and 2 assists in his last 2 games.

Battlefords North Stars:

Were shutout in their last game and no one really stood out offensively. The D was pretty good in that game giving up just 18 shots and Connor Creech was good in net as well.

Players to Watch:

La Ronge Ice Wolves:

Marc-Andre Carre is one of the top players in the league and when he is on his game. He is big strong, pretty fast and has excellent hands. Can score himself or set up team mates.

Alex Rajotte. If Alex Rajotte is in net he can be a game changer. When he is on he is very tough to beat.

Byron Sorenson. He’s back with the Ice Wolves and is a Woody Klassen type D man who plays well at both ends.

Battlefords North Stars

Jordan Ethier is playing against his former team for the first time. It will be interesting to see how he performs tonight.

Head to Head:

Battlefords 0 @ LaRonge 3 (Dec 13 2011)

LaRonge 0 @ Battlefords 1 (Oct 25 2011)

Battlefords 2 @ LaRonge 4 (Oct 5 2011)

LaRonge 0 @ Battlefords 2 (Sep 24 2011)

Blake Tatchell has 5 points in the 4 games so far. Braeden Johnson has 3 in 3. Kyle Hall has not put up a point in 4 games against La Ronge yet this year.

Marc-Andre Carre has 2 points in 2 games. Brett Hope is a big D man who plays some forward sometimes and he has been good against the North Stars so far this season with 3 points and 21 PIMs in 4 games.

Special Teams:

La Ronge Ice Wolves:

PP – 17.1 (11th) PK – 82.6 (2nd)

Battlefords North Stars:

PP – 19.7 (5th) PK – 78.5 (9th)

Other Notes:

La Ronge Ice Wolves:

They spent a lot of time on the bus recently. Their road trip took them to Homboldt, Estevan and Weyburn. Then they got stuck in a whiteout on the way back to La Ronge so had to sit in Saskatoon for 3 or so hours before finishing the trip. And now they hop on a bus and head here to the Battlefords. That’s a lot of time and miles. Of course they had a 13 game home stand earlier in the season so they knew this was coming.

Battlefords North Stars

The Stars have played the fewest road games of any team in the league with just 19 games played away from home. Luckily for the Stars their road record is also one of the best in the league. They have a lot of traveling left to do this season so that strong road record will need to be maintained in order to challenge the Broncos for first in the league.

The Big Stat(s):

Zero. Just like last game the number 0 could feature in a big way tonight. In 3 of the 4 matchups this season one of the teams has failed to score. A shutout for one of the goalies tonight could be a safe bet.